Robert Kirkton is the associate director of new product development at Humacyte, Inc. in North Carolina.

Humacyte, Inc.

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UnDisciplined: The Sociologist and the Bioengineer

This week on UnDisciplined, we're going to chat with a scientist who is trying to solve a big challenge: engineering blood vessels for transplantation into human bodies. After that, we'll talk to a researcher who is trying to solve a challenge that might be even bigger: reducing gender pay disparities in corporate America.

Joining us in the studios of Utah Public Radio is Christy Glass, a professor of sociology at Utah State University. Her team's recent study in the journal Human Relations suggests — perhaps surprisingly — that integrating women into the boards of directors and compensation committees at Fortune 500 companies isn't enough to impact gender pay disparities. But, giving those women influence on those boards and committees as the chair, does.

With us on the line from North Carolina, where he is the associate director of new product development at Humacyte, Inc. is Robert Kirkton. His team's recent study, published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, describes a process for bioengineering blood vessels that, when installed into the arms of dialysis patients, were successfully integrated into their circulatory systems.

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This week on UnDisciplined, we're talking to researchers on two sides of a huge scientific challenge. Our first guest researches climate — that means she only has one test subject to work with: the Earth. Our second guest studies cancer, which presents differently in humans and other organisms. That means she has endless test subjects.

This week on UnDisciplined, we're talking about scientific puzzles. For instance, why is it that hundreds of tree species can exist within a single acre of rainforest, but the same species is almost never found next to itself?

Or, here's another one: Why is it that individual animals from the same species — dogs, for instance — can exhibit such tremendously different traits when it comes to aggressiveness?